Search for Fischer winds up in Japan

On the lam for 12 years, renegade, mysterious chess master fights extradition to U.S.

July 17, 2004|By Charles Leroux, Tribune senior correspondent.

In a life marked by moves every bit as bold and bizarre as those he made in matches, chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer, 61, seems finally about to be checkmated.

In exile, on the run and subject to U.S. arrest for the past 12 years, Fischer was taken into custody before boarding a flight to the Philippines from Narita International Airport outside Tokyo earlier this week. Though Japanese immigration officials made the arrest, it came at the urging of U.S. officials.

Fischer now is fighting extradition to the United States to face a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

He is accused of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and Executive Order 12810. The charge stems from his 1992 chess rematch against his archrival, Russian Boris Spassky.

The act and order prohibited U.S. residents from taking part in commercial activities relating to Yugoslavia, the site of the rematch. Yugoslavia was under economic sanction for its involvement in the forced seizure of territory in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Fischer ignored a letter from the Treasury Department stating that the match would constitute "exportation of services" to Yugoslavia. He went anyway and held a news conference there. He held up the letter from the department ordering him not to play.

"This is my reply," he said, clearing his throat and spitting violently on the letter.

The news conference was, by Fischer's order, held with written questions that had been submitted for approval. It was not the only demand he would make during his stay in Yugoslavia.

At the rematch, Fischer asked for everything from a match-area toilet seat to be raised by an inch to a dozen handmade shirts that were exact copies of the one he wore 20 years earlier when he beat the Russian in Iceland and become both the only American world chess champion and a Cold War symbol of an American triumph.

At the rematch with Spassky in Yugoslavia, after donning what he called a "riverboat gambler" visor that he said energized him and gave the advantage that "your opponent can't see what you're looking at," Fischer won, collected $3.35 million, and a federal grand jury indicted him.

He has been on the lam ever since. For all that time, the U.S. has been engaged in a chess game of sorts with the grandmaster as he moved among Japan, Hungary, the Philippines and other nations.

All the while, the chess world crackled with speculation about where Fischer was and what he was doing. Occasionally he would pop up, often under odd circumstances.

In 2001, British grandmaster Nigel Short said he was sure "that I have been playing against the chess legend" on the Internet. An unknown host had invited Short to a chess Web site, where he was told to sign in as a guest and contend against an unidentified opponent.

Short said he was first hammered in eight quick rounds and went on to play other matches. He guessed his opponent's identity because of the latter's "blitzkrieg play and talk of 1960s chess trivia." He also noted American spelling in their on-line conversations. Other chess experts, however, concluded that the dazzling speed of play on the part of the mystery combatant pointed only to a computer.

Broadcasting sports

That same year, in an extensive Atlantic Monthly article, writer Rene Chun found Fischer working as a disc jockey broadcasting from DZSR Sports Radio, an AM station in Manila.

- The U.S. government, a "brutal, evil dictatorship," that falsely accused him of a crime, thus forcing his exile.

- World Jewry, people, he said, bent on such evils as the mass murder of Christian children ("their blood is used for black-magic ceremonies") and junk food (Dunkin' Donuts founder William Rosenberg was singled out.)

- A plot by the Rothchilds banking family (Jews), former President Bill Clinton (secretly a Jew) and executives at the Bekins moving and storage company (CIA operatives taking orders from the Jews.) This last has to do with memorabilia Fischer stored at Bekins in Pasadena, Calif., that he contends has been stolen.

Fischer friends and followers have either downplayed his outrageous statements or said they show he is deranged and needs to be treated, not persecuted.

9/11 interview

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fischer was interviewed on Bombo Radyo in Baguio City in the Philippines. His comments on that occasion couldn't be swept away and were not ignored.

"This is all wonderful news," he said, "I applaud the act. The U.S. and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them for years. Robbing and slaughtering them. . . . Now it's coming back to the U.S."

With that, the United States Chess Federation, which had always overlooked his outbursts, denounced him.